Current cell balancing systems include a set of battery protectors that each monitors a subset of cells in a battery pack. Each battery protector remains in cell balancing mode regardless of the charge condition state of the subset being monitored or the state of charging of other cell members in the battery pack. For instance, each battery protector will monitor and balance its respective subset of cells even if another set of cells has faulted due to over-current discharge, over-voltage, or other considerations. Expensive interfaces have been considered for each battery protector in the stack to indicate when a fault has occurred and to allow individual on and off control of each protector. A host processor is usually also required to monitor status from each protector and to disable the protector under detected fault conditions. This type of individual control and monitoring for each protector adds considerable expense to the overall stack of protectors in addition to needing host interactions to properly control the stack.